Halloween and Threes

Halloween or Hallowe'en is a contraction of All Hallows' Evening, which is also known as Allhalloween, All Hallows' Eve and All Saints' Eve.  The yearly celebration is observed in a number of countries on October 31, the eve of the Western Christian feast of All Hallows' Day. It initiates the triduum of Allhallowtide, the time in the liturgical year dedicated to remembering the dead, including saints (hallows), martyrs, and all the faithful departed believers. Within Allhallowtide, the traditional focus of All Hallows' Eve revolves around the theme of using "humor and ridicule to confront the power of death."


According to many scholars, All Hallows' Eve is a Christianized feast initially influenced by Celtic harvest festivals with possible pagan roots, particularly the Gaelic Samhain. Other scholars maintain that it originated separate from Samhain and has solely Christian roots.
 

And this from the “Jack is Back” lyrics:

“So be careful when out on this all hallows eve,

Stay away from the dark, travel in threes.

Jack might pick you for his dinner tonight,

If he sees you alone, in the dark, he just might.”

Three Elements in a Perfect Storm

Threes are popularized by events and episodes as well.  The idea of a perfect storm is a recurring theme that today helps to explain the combination of three elements that create a result far greater than each one has the potential to produce by itself or even when two are combined.  The Perfect Storm started as a depiction of a meteorological oddity.

As we await the arrival of the “Frankenstorm” that is about to pummel the Mid-Atlantic states, we can recall another similar scenario.  The powerful nor’easter of October 1991 that formed off the coast of Massachusetts became the antecedent for the currently popular term.  Eventually to be described in a best-selling book by journalist Sebastian Junger and then depicted in a movie, the storm perfected itself as warm air from a low-pressure system arriving from the southwest met cool, dry air generated by high-pressure to the north and tropical moisture provided by Hurricane Grace, which was dying out off the East Coast of the United States as it moved into the colder waters of the north Atlantic.  The three ingredients produced rain, strong winds and 100 foot waves in the ocean.  

Now we use “Perfect Storm” as a metaphor to describe situations that result from a combination of three ingredients in a potent mix.  We see the reference often.

From Threes, Chapter One, “The Wonder of Threes”

Happiness

“We’re happy when we have a rosy view of the future, but we’re also happy that the present exceeds what our expectations were,” [Researcher George] Loewenstein said. Also, quite unsurprisingly, past rewards had less of an impact on contentment as time passed. 

Using MRI data, researchers determined that signals from a region of the brain called the striatum could be used to predict how happy people would be at any given time during the experiment. They then created a smartphone app to test their model on a much wider audience–a total of 18,420 online participants. 

The app featured the same decision-making game as the MRI experiment. Although the subjects were remote and anonymous, the results were still consistent with the model.  “All models are simplifications of reality,” said Loewenstein. “But their central insight that happiness depends on how reality pans out relative to expectation is a correct one, in my view.” 

He noted that, while the idea behind the happiness equation isn’t new, the study is a “strong and interesting” piece of supportive evidence. But can we use this knowledge to boost our own well-being? Lowering expectations as a tactic has already been ruled out, but the study does hint at why you might not feel as elated after reaching an expected goal as you might think. “People are always pursuing goals, and when they reach the goal, they don’t end up being as satisfied as they perceive they’d be–as if happiness is held out in front of us, and we never quite achieve it,” Loewenstein said. 

On the other hand, he suggests that there might be some consolation in realizing that we are all hard-wired this way in order to keep us moving forward.  

From “On the road to happiness, a pleasant surprise beats a sure thing,” Washington Post by Meeri Kim, August 8